Abstract.
Fixturing encompasses the design and assembly of fixtures to locate and hold a workpiece during a manufacturing operation such as machining or assembly. We have implemented an automated design algorithm for a fixturing toolkit called the fixture vise; the fixture vise involves two fixture plates mounted on jaws of a vise and modular fixturing elements (pegs or flatted pegs). Generally, a fixture vise can handle appropriately sized prismatic workpieces in many different ways. The design algorithm runs in O(A) time, where A is the number of configurations achieving simultaneous contact between the modeled object and four fixture elements; since simultaneous contact is a necessary but not sufficient precondition for force closure, A provides an upper bound on the number of force closure fixture configurations.
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Received June 6, 1994; revised November 17, 1994, February 1, 1995, February 28, 1995, and July 11, 1995.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wallack, A., Canny, J. Planning for Modular and Hybrid Fixtures . Algorithmica 19, 40–60 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00014420
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00014420